Casey Zablocki

Guild Gallery is pleased to present the gallery’s third solo exhibition by Missoula, Montana-based artist Casey Zablocki, known for his large-scale, anagama kiln ceramic work. This new exhibition captures a defining moment in his practice: the exploration of the elemental and the experimental. Signature woodfired forms—monumental vessels marked by the rugged character of the Montana landscape mixed with inspiration from Brutalist architecture—are now recast with mineral-rich hues and locally-dug porcelain slips. As a result, pieces brim with subtlety and saturation. Terrestrial surfaces formed by ash evolve into something unexpected and expressive. Here, Zablocki balances grounded materiality with a palette of possibility, expressly seen in works such as Parabia, a stunning pair of benches realized in celadon and robins-egg blue. Navigating the tension between restraint and resplendence, each work is tinted with pigment and punctuated with texture, shifting the viewer's perceptions of light and form, of earth and the imagination. Above all, this exhibition showcases an artist suspended between ceramic tradition and terrain unfamiliar. Creating brutal forms and craggy surfaces, his experimentational blends of clay blend push boundaries of scale and material, forging sculptures, functional objects, and furniture that appear to be carved from the landscape or rescued from architectural ruins. Zablocki’s mountainous surroundings of Missoula, Montana are central to his practice. The colors of his work emerge from slips fashioned from locally sourced porcelain and ash from the native woods used to fuel the woodburning anagama kiln. In each work, he seeks to capture the tension of the modern world we’ve created coexisting within the ancient one we’ve been given. Born into a family of artists and makers, Zablocki received his BFA at Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan and completed his post-baccalaureate studies at Montana State University. He has apprenticed with some of the world’s leading ceramic artists, including Peter Callas and Hun Chung Lee.

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